New 'Final Destination' film sparks misrepresented visuals
- Published on June 4, 2025 at 06:05
- 6 min read
- By AFP Indonesia, AFP Thailand
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"Anyone knows this news? The ceiling of a movie theatre in the Philippines collapsed during the screening of the Final Destination 6 movie. That's really the ultimate experience," says an Indonesian-language Facebook post on May 26, 2025.
It includes a two-minute clip of a crowd in distress as water starts to leak from a cinema's ceiling, with some parts starting to fall off.
A similar post written in Burmese surfaced on the same day with an image showing the damaged interior of a movie house. "The ceiling collapsed while screening Final Destination," the caption reads.
"Final Destination: Bloodlines", the latest instalment in the horror franchise, topped the North American box office following its release in mid-May (archived link).
Similar claims about a theatre collapsing during the film's screening also surfaced on X, Instagram and TikTok and were shared in other languages, including Hindi, English, and Tagalog.
While such an incident was reported in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires in May, the circulating visuals are unrelated (archived link).
A reverse image search using keyframes found multiple news reports shared the clip in June 2015, including from ABC7 News (archived link).
"Six people were reported hurt Monday night in Cebu, Philippines when parts of the ceiling of an Ayala Center Cebu cinema room collapsed after intense water leakage," part of the report reads, referring to a city in central Philippines.
It goes to say that 350 people were in the room for a brand relaunch event.
A similar clip of the event taken from another angle has appeared in reports from Philippine media organisations Sunstar and Rappler (archived here and here).
Another reverse search of the photo showing the destroyed theatre found it in an NBC News article published February 28, 2025 -- months before the release of "Final Destination: Bloodlines" (archived link).
"Movie theater ceiling collapses during screening of 'Captain America: Brave New World'," reads the report's headline.
"The historic Liberty Theater in Wenatchee, Wash. Two people were in the theater during the incident, but no injuries were reported," says the caption to the picture.
The photo is credited to Wenatchee Valley Fire Department, which uploaded an Instagram post about the same event on February 26, 2025 (archived here and here).
"At approximately 8 PM, Wenatchee Valley firefighters responded to a reported ceiling collapse at Liberty Cinema. Two people were inside the theater at the time, but fortunately, no injuries were reported. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation," the post states.
AFP previously debunked misinformation related to blockbuster movies here, here and here.
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